Since that time, my Lord, I have
been struggling to make the best of a Clerkship of L80 per ann., out of
which I have to meet every expence, and still to maintain a respectable
appearance in a Place where I have resided under different
circumstances. Had I enter'd my present Situation free of all debts, I
should have made it an inviolable rule to have limited my expenditure to
my Income; but beginning in debt, compell'd by peculiar circumstances to
mix with those much superior to myself, I have gone on till I find it
quite impossible to go on any longer, and I am compelled to seek for
some asylum where, by rigid frugality and indefatigable exertion, I may
free myself from my present humiliating embarrassments; but while I am
here the thing seems impracticable. Your Lordship will naturally inquire
why I do not avail myself of the influence of those friends by whom I am
known. As you have, my Lord, done me the honour to encourage me to state
my position frankly, I will, without hesitation, inform you. I am,
nominally at least, a Quaker. The persons to whom I should, in my
present difficulties, naturally look for assistance are among the most
respectable of that body; but my attachments to literary and
metaphysical studies, and a line of conduct not compatible with the
strictness of Quaker discipline, have, I am afraid, brought me into
disrepute with those to whom I should otherwise have confided my
situation. Were I to disclose it, it would only be consider'd as a fit
judgment on me for my scepticism and infidelity.
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